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VM, RDP or Parallels

ivanwi11iams

ivanwi11iams

Contributor
Original poster
Nov 30, 2014
4,507
3,066
Georgia, USA
Curious, looking to see what everyone's take is on this.
I work in I.T. and from time to time, I'm sure I'll need to connect to a Windows Server, or merely RDP to a Windows computer.

For those of you that are 'into' this, do you:
- merely RDP into the computer of choice
- dual boot your Mac, for Windows and Mac OS
- use the likes of Parallels, and use a VM or sorts

Looking forward to your replies.
 
ivantwilliams said:
Ay other opinions...?
Click to expand...

It depends on what your priorities are.

For development:
I run Windows Server 2008 R2 Web inside of VMWare Fusion on OS X. The "performance per watt" is excellent as the machine runs quite silent compared to running Windows 7 and far more so than Windows 10.

Development in BootCamp:
Running Windows natively inside of Boot Camp is inherently restrictive as you can't run any OS X software. I have not found any significant benefit over using a VM unless you need to run 3D applications.

For testing:
Use Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac to connect to another machine running Windows Server. I would not use this for much more than testing/deployment as there is lag over the network, except iff you're hard wire a bridge directly to the machine. I don't think remotely connecting to a Windows system via Windows in Boot Camp will make a difference and if you try it via VM, the performance will be even worse.
 
OS X has a nice RDP client - CoRD

If I'm going to be spending a lot of time accessing servers, though I typically boot into Windows via bootcamp. I find the experience that much better over Vmware. In fact, I've hardly used Vmware at this point.
 
Bootcamp: If I need to run something that requires a lot of power
Virtualbox: If I just need MS Office or something simple
RDP: I use to use this before I set up virtualbox. Drains less battery, but you can't use it as easily outside your LAN.
 
I use the app Screens from the app store, its quite expensive but its very nice to use. It allows me to connect remotely to Windows' and Mac's.

I also use VMware Fusion from time to time, I find it just as fast as parallels but again nicer to use.
 
to remote in to all workstations I use Splashtop Business. I have this installed on my laptop, phone, desktop and works great for me.
If I'm running my own Windows I use VMWare Fusion 8 Pro. My wife uses Parallels but will probably switch to VMWare at some point. I usually only ever need to run Windows for a short amount of time and not interrupt anyone else by remoting in. Or test out new software to check if it should run reliably in our setup.
 
ivantwilliams said:
Curious, looking to see what everyone's take is on this.
I work in I.T. and from time to time, I'm sure I'll need to connect to a Windows Server, or merely RDP to a Windows computer.

For those of you that are 'into' this, do you:
- merely RDP into the computer of choice
- dual boot your Mac, for Windows and Mac OS
- use the likes of Parallels, and use a VM or sorts

Looking forward to your replies.
Click to expand...

If all you need is to RDP into work servers, then I'd just use the MS RDP for the Mac...

For me? I RDP into the work servers, but I also do stuff locally in Windows 10. As far as VM vs. Bootcamp? If you have enough RAM to run a VM and do everything you need to... then a VM of Windows on the Mac OS should do the trick. For me? I have an rMB with only 8GB of RAM - And... I need to run a couple of Windows OS's virtualized. So, I chose to do a Bootcamp / Window 10 (to get what I needed for the core Windows junk), and anything else (testing VMs, etc.) - I run under a VM.

I guess it depends on your needs though...
 
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